I think there is a third way, between sacrificing strategic advantage and selling out our morals, and that is to make better arguments. Kamala didn’t make arguments about immigration or trans rights, so I don’t think we can say our values didn’t win the day. She waffled, tried to be all things to all people, and so opened herself up to being defined by her opponent.
If the Hippocratic oath says “do no harm” this dialectic of “hope” (aka winning elections) and “truth” must then have a synthesis like “do most good” or “do least harm” and leave behind Zero sum strategies that Coates sagely adumbrated for us back in 2015.
I have come to respect Coates with the publication of “the message” not because of the book (I didn’t read it yet) but because of the illuminated conversations he has surrounding the event. Your quotation has sent me to my public library on Veterans Day to be frustrated that I can’t borrow the Atlantic article and read his books.
And this dialectic is most profoundly reflected in the issue of Gaza and southern Lebanon. I went right to MAP and donated; thanks for the suggestion. Perhaps (truly or hopefully) Mike Pompeo and the incoming goon squad won’t view that as supporting terrorism!
In a post prior to mine on this topic, someone says “we know better“. I think that is a cynical rendering because I hate to say it lads and ladies truth is often one of perspective. For me then it could be tolerably bad or “slightly better“ to find a way to have a truth and to find common cause with those that view it differently. That may mean joining on other issues, for example, as Peter says by redistributing the benefits, the upper classes receive from immigration downward.
And of course that may not work with the red shift we’ve seen amongst male Latinos and African-Americans. Perhaps they are as Patrick Ruffin says, this slice of the electorate is attracted by Republican entrepreneurial, hard-working ideology. I see no reason why this has to conflict with Democrat ideology one bit. Perhaps it needs to be included as the positive side of the bargain for making immigration less a zero some game. Because after all the suffering of the undocumented as Peter once again rightly says is our responsibility as moral beings. That is a truth that I hold, but of course one may have to choose one’s rights and wrongs to benefit your fellow citizens. That is both practical and moral.
I dislike Trump as much as you do, but a few points: Ricky Ray Rector was not "mentally retarded". After killing two men, he shot himself in the head. His lawyers naturally argued that he was incompetent to stand trial. However, the trial judge rejected their arguments and the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a plea. Of course, Clinton did not need to go to Arkansas to "oversee" the excution. That was tasteless grandstanding.
With regard to immigration, it's true that, so far as we can tell, the crime rate among illegal immigrants is lower than the overall national average for us citizens, but that's only true because the crime rate among blacks is so high. If you compare illegal immigrants with whites, not to mention Asians, the results aren't so good.
The Obama administration was very "brutal" on illegal immigrants prior to 2012, turning away millions, which may be one reason why Obama won reelection. As "everyone" is pointing out, a lot of Hispanics voted for Trump, suggesting that opposition to immigration isn't simply racist. It would be nice if we had a "rational" policy on immigration, but that simply isn't in the cards.
He was mentally incompetent. Yes, it was due to his own actions when mentally competent. He was guilty when he was mentally competent--he shot the police officer who negotiated his surrender in the back. He then shot himself and destroyed part of his brain.
the question (apart from the death penalty itself) is what is the point of executing a man who thought he would be coming back to his cell to finish his pie. Rector had essentially executed the man who committed the crimes when he shot himself.
The net effect of immigration on the United States is clearly a positive one but, to be truthful--as you are recommending--we must also admit that many immigrants bring with them what we might consider retrograde cultural values and gender relations. That too needs to be acknowledged.
You've lost me. So, do we tell the American people that what they sometimes want is wrong and immoral, but we will listen to them and do it anyway to win because our winning is a greater good. We know best. Or do you mean we say it among ourselves and wink? Charming.
I was similarly puzzled. If Democrats get harsh on immigration but at the same time say that immigrants are on balance good for our economy and our society, they will look like fools.
You have to pick your fights carefully in politics and meet voters where they are to some extent or you end up losing to fascists. Getting bogged down in stupid cultural issues like whether there should be gender reassignment surgeries in federal prisons is a complete waste of time and energy and an idiotic policy in and of itself.
Ironically enough, it was the Trump administration that initiated the policy of gender reassignment surgeries in federal prisons. But VP Harris made comments in 2019 expressing support for the policy when she ran for President.
No one running for office loses an election based on their view around one divisive cultural issue alone. But supporting gender affirming surgeries in prison is an in your face thing, especially during a time of high inflation when people are struggling to pay their bills.
It is a distraction from the material quality of life problems that many Americans face. If, the Biden administration, from day one, had put forth a radical plan to lower cost of living in this country by, say, proposing a single payer heath care system and financing it with tax increases on the billionaire class maybe Democrats and America would be in a better place today. I also feel this way about a new voting rights bill after the January 6 insurrection and expanding the Supreme Court after Roe was overturned.
Joe Biden, without question, had some magnificent policy accomplishments. But his vision was too small for the times. And VP Harris and Democrats payed the price last Tuesday when millions of 2020 Biden voters stayed home and even switched over to Trump. The American people soon will as well.
I read the first part of the Arielle Angel interview with Mr. Omar and it is truly fascinating. I will read the rest later. I believe most of his points to be valid, but there are a few have questions I have. First of all, how is Israel’s operation in Gaza today any more genocidal than what occurred on October 7, 2023 when 3500 people at a music festival and kibbutz in Israel were murdered, raped, tortured, and abducted? How was this massacre “resistance” in any way?
Does he believe that Hamas or Hezbollah terrorists would ever, under any circumstances, accept the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East?
In one sentence, he says that Palestinian violence is purely for liberation and not to dominate anyone else? What about the sexual violence and torture that occurred on October 7, 2023? Are not rape and torture crimes of northing but absolute power?
Also, is he so ignorant about Judaism that he believes all self-described Zionists think identically on all issues related to Israel-Palestine? For what it’s worth, I do not consider myself one.
Finally, he says that Israelis should seek forgiveness from Palestinians for the way the way they have treated them. Agreed. But does he feel this way about Palestinians regarding the October 7, 2023 pogrom and the suicide bombings committed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in the 1990s when there was a peace process in effect? How exactly does he determine whom has been crueler to whom since 1948 and even before that?
Peter’s monologue today, like usual, is spot-on. However, the one mistake I think he makes, which I believe a lot of people on the Left do (I come from this world) is aways assuming the best in people and believing that those who have experienced persecution and oppression are more compassionate than those who have not.
Unfortunately, this many times is not true. Look at the Middle East. Jews and Palestinians, both of whom have experienced extreme injustices throughout history, brutalize each other.
In the United States, many of the undocumented immigrants, although certainly not all of them, especially from Latin America, harbor very right-wing political views. And if Democrats are going to stick their necks out for Latinos, there should be reciprocity.
If, Latinos are going to vote for candidates for office who want to see their relatives’ families broken up and deported, no effort should be made by progressives, Democrats, and other pro-democracy Americans to stop it, even though it is obviously the right thing to do.
Those on the left, center-left, and center-right need to become a lot more ruthless and learn to play hardball without ceding the moral high ground. I know this is tricky, but we have to learn how to do it because otherwise we look like patsies to the larger American populace that does not pay close attention to politics.
It is not a lie that trangender ideology is NOT hurting anyone. The fact is if you believe transwomen are women, you effectively remove the legal status of biological women. If men can be women under some circumstances and not-women under others, then they are not women all the time. If laws designed to protect women, such as same-sex prisons, also protect men who state they are women or that they FEEL like women (not being women they don't have a clue what it feels like to be a woman), then there is no prison which protects biological women by being a "same-sex" facility because you are allowing both sexes in and calling everyone women, when they are not. Transgender women enjoy the privileges of being men as well as being women. So where does that leave women? It harms all biological women. And if you do not recognize this, you are not telling the truth.
It also harms the children whose puberty is stopped in its tracks with puberty blockers (a chemical form of castration) and chopping off body parts that are central to the one biological imperative we have: reproduction. This is not difficult to understand. It is a lie to say this ideology does not hurt anyone. That's like saying Zionist ethnosupremacist ideology is true and hurts no one. It is not true and it most certainly has harmed millions of people to date.. That is one ideology that really hurt the Democratic Party simply because it's been acting it out on real people whose real lives were snuffed out in the most outrageous manner on their watch and with their choosing to spend our money without a congressional declaration of war and even sometimes without congressional approval. That is the truth.
The truth is, "transgender" ideology is a pet project, a stepping stone to transhumanism through which the billionaire class are positioned to steal even more than they already have from the government's coffers. They fund the inculcating of youth in this ideology as well as funding the non-profits that support the ideology and the medical facilities which provide hormone replacement therapy and surgery and life-long services. All on the taxpayer's dime. This is taxation without representation. And it's mostly men who are benefiting from this. That is the truth. As though men are not privileged enough.
These men posing as women qualify for positions that are specifically for women, grants that are specifically for women, prizes and awards that are limited to "women". All these things exist because of the privilege that men are born to and live with their entire lives at the expense of women. And here they are stealing rights from women again.
Meanwhile women, many of whom were sexually molested as kids, who are stuck in prison are forced to put up with men who are pretending to be "women" (or their bizarre translation of women) in order to be housed with the very class of people they are in prison for predating upon. Pedophiles and rapists jump at the chance of being housed in a women's prison. Of course they do. And the women who are their prey have absolutely NO protection, even as they are imprisoned there, like dogs in a dog shelter. But dogs have their own cage, which female prisoners do not. They have to share quarters with male predators who still have the organ which they have used as a weapon which most often put them in the prison system to begin with.
Since when do "trans people" have the "right" to surgery when non-trans do not? You are lying that transgender people's "rights" aren't hurting other Americans. That is a lie which indicates you don't understand what has been happening in this country since 2013. I suggest you read some of Jennifer Bilek's blogs. There are very few truly trans people in this country. Let's tell the truth about that.
As for immigration, I don't give a flying fuck what the Dems or the Republicans believe on this issue. We need immigrants. That's the truth. If the billionaires want to use them against us, that's no reason to limit them coming into our country. The system does not provide sufficient lawyers or judges or material support to give them an honest chance to be given asylum. And until we stop engaging in activities (like gun running and drug using and hiring housekeepers and chicken pluckers for below-minimum wage payment) we have no right to refuse them the opportunity of migrating here. Not to mention the IMF's usurious loans and the billionaire class's predatory loans given to allow their home countries to make their interest payments, etc. In the near future those private investors are going to demand the right of ownership of their home countries' natural resources in lieu of payment for very high interest loans that should never have been made to begin with.
The Democratic as well as the Republican parties are horribly captured, both horrendously unrepresentative of anyone in this country. The truth is, we need a real revolution.
I don't really understand how Coates' fills the shoes you are trying on. The truth is both the Dems and the Republicans are wagged by the same tail. The Deep State doesn't care which party won. Neither did Netanyahu. And for very different reasons, neither did Putin.
FYI, "The Atlantic" has been captured by the Zionists for years now. It's not worth reading. It also panders to millenials who don't have much general knowledge or any historical understanding. Why is Coates publishing there?
As for immigrants, it isn't until the third generation in the US that they stop out-performing the native-born. Adapting to their new culture and becoming just like their native-born counterparts.
I think there is a third way, between sacrificing strategic advantage and selling out our morals, and that is to make better arguments. Kamala didn’t make arguments about immigration or trans rights, so I don’t think we can say our values didn’t win the day. She waffled, tried to be all things to all people, and so opened herself up to being defined by her opponent.
You said to share any other Palestinian aid options. Here's one: https://www.gofundme.com/f/Hot-meals-in-gaza-daily
Reposted here:
If the Hippocratic oath says “do no harm” this dialectic of “hope” (aka winning elections) and “truth” must then have a synthesis like “do most good” or “do least harm” and leave behind Zero sum strategies that Coates sagely adumbrated for us back in 2015.
I have come to respect Coates with the publication of “the message” not because of the book (I didn’t read it yet) but because of the illuminated conversations he has surrounding the event. Your quotation has sent me to my public library on Veterans Day to be frustrated that I can’t borrow the Atlantic article and read his books.
And this dialectic is most profoundly reflected in the issue of Gaza and southern Lebanon. I went right to MAP and donated; thanks for the suggestion. Perhaps (truly or hopefully) Mike Pompeo and the incoming goon squad won’t view that as supporting terrorism!
In a post prior to mine on this topic, someone says “we know better“. I think that is a cynical rendering because I hate to say it lads and ladies truth is often one of perspective. For me then it could be tolerably bad or “slightly better“ to find a way to have a truth and to find common cause with those that view it differently. That may mean joining on other issues, for example, as Peter says by redistributing the benefits, the upper classes receive from immigration downward.
And of course that may not work with the red shift we’ve seen amongst male Latinos and African-Americans. Perhaps they are as Patrick Ruffin says, this slice of the electorate is attracted by Republican entrepreneurial, hard-working ideology. I see no reason why this has to conflict with Democrat ideology one bit. Perhaps it needs to be included as the positive side of the bargain for making immigration less a zero some game. Because after all the suffering of the undocumented as Peter once again rightly says is our responsibility as moral beings. That is a truth that I hold, but of course one may have to choose one’s rights and wrongs to benefit your fellow citizens. That is both practical and moral.
Thanks for this insightful post.
I dislike Trump as much as you do, but a few points: Ricky Ray Rector was not "mentally retarded". After killing two men, he shot himself in the head. His lawyers naturally argued that he was incompetent to stand trial. However, the trial judge rejected their arguments and the Arkansas Supreme Court upheld the ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a plea. Of course, Clinton did not need to go to Arkansas to "oversee" the excution. That was tasteless grandstanding.
With regard to immigration, it's true that, so far as we can tell, the crime rate among illegal immigrants is lower than the overall national average for us citizens, but that's only true because the crime rate among blacks is so high. If you compare illegal immigrants with whites, not to mention Asians, the results aren't so good.
The Obama administration was very "brutal" on illegal immigrants prior to 2012, turning away millions, which may be one reason why Obama won reelection. As "everyone" is pointing out, a lot of Hispanics voted for Trump, suggesting that opposition to immigration isn't simply racist. It would be nice if we had a "rational" policy on immigration, but that simply isn't in the cards.
He was mentally incompetent. Yes, it was due to his own actions when mentally competent. He was guilty when he was mentally competent--he shot the police officer who negotiated his surrender in the back. He then shot himself and destroyed part of his brain.
the question (apart from the death penalty itself) is what is the point of executing a man who thought he would be coming back to his cell to finish his pie. Rector had essentially executed the man who committed the crimes when he shot himself.
The net effect of immigration on the United States is clearly a positive one but, to be truthful--as you are recommending--we must also admit that many immigrants bring with them what we might consider retrograde cultural values and gender relations. That too needs to be acknowledged.
You've lost me. So, do we tell the American people that what they sometimes want is wrong and immoral, but we will listen to them and do it anyway to win because our winning is a greater good. We know best. Or do you mean we say it among ourselves and wink? Charming.
Lee Fischler
I was similarly puzzled. If Democrats get harsh on immigration but at the same time say that immigrants are on balance good for our economy and our society, they will look like fools.
You have to pick your fights carefully in politics and meet voters where they are to some extent or you end up losing to fascists. Getting bogged down in stupid cultural issues like whether there should be gender reassignment surgeries in federal prisons is a complete waste of time and energy and an idiotic policy in and of itself.
Ironically enough, it was the Trump administration that initiated the policy of gender reassignment surgeries in federal prisons. But VP Harris made comments in 2019 expressing support for the policy when she ran for President.
No one running for office loses an election based on their view around one divisive cultural issue alone. But supporting gender affirming surgeries in prison is an in your face thing, especially during a time of high inflation when people are struggling to pay their bills.
It is a distraction from the material quality of life problems that many Americans face. If, the Biden administration, from day one, had put forth a radical plan to lower cost of living in this country by, say, proposing a single payer heath care system and financing it with tax increases on the billionaire class maybe Democrats and America would be in a better place today. I also feel this way about a new voting rights bill after the January 6 insurrection and expanding the Supreme Court after Roe was overturned.
Joe Biden, without question, had some magnificent policy accomplishments. But his vision was too small for the times. And VP Harris and Democrats payed the price last Tuesday when millions of 2020 Biden voters stayed home and even switched over to Trump. The American people soon will as well.
I read the first part of the Arielle Angel interview with Mr. Omar and it is truly fascinating. I will read the rest later. I believe most of his points to be valid, but there are a few have questions I have. First of all, how is Israel’s operation in Gaza today any more genocidal than what occurred on October 7, 2023 when 3500 people at a music festival and kibbutz in Israel were murdered, raped, tortured, and abducted? How was this massacre “resistance” in any way?
Does he believe that Hamas or Hezbollah terrorists would ever, under any circumstances, accept the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East?
In one sentence, he says that Palestinian violence is purely for liberation and not to dominate anyone else? What about the sexual violence and torture that occurred on October 7, 2023? Are not rape and torture crimes of northing but absolute power?
Also, is he so ignorant about Judaism that he believes all self-described Zionists think identically on all issues related to Israel-Palestine? For what it’s worth, I do not consider myself one.
Finally, he says that Israelis should seek forgiveness from Palestinians for the way the way they have treated them. Agreed. But does he feel this way about Palestinians regarding the October 7, 2023 pogrom and the suicide bombings committed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in the 1990s when there was a peace process in effect? How exactly does he determine whom has been crueler to whom since 1948 and even before that?
Peter’s monologue today, like usual, is spot-on. However, the one mistake I think he makes, which I believe a lot of people on the Left do (I come from this world) is aways assuming the best in people and believing that those who have experienced persecution and oppression are more compassionate than those who have not.
Unfortunately, this many times is not true. Look at the Middle East. Jews and Palestinians, both of whom have experienced extreme injustices throughout history, brutalize each other.
In the United States, many of the undocumented immigrants, although certainly not all of them, especially from Latin America, harbor very right-wing political views. And if Democrats are going to stick their necks out for Latinos, there should be reciprocity.
If, Latinos are going to vote for candidates for office who want to see their relatives’ families broken up and deported, no effort should be made by progressives, Democrats, and other pro-democracy Americans to stop it, even though it is obviously the right thing to do.
Those on the left, center-left, and center-right need to become a lot more ruthless and learn to play hardball without ceding the moral high ground. I know this is tricky, but we have to learn how to do it because otherwise we look like patsies to the larger American populace that does not pay close attention to politics.
More later.
It is not a lie that trangender ideology is NOT hurting anyone. The fact is if you believe transwomen are women, you effectively remove the legal status of biological women. If men can be women under some circumstances and not-women under others, then they are not women all the time. If laws designed to protect women, such as same-sex prisons, also protect men who state they are women or that they FEEL like women (not being women they don't have a clue what it feels like to be a woman), then there is no prison which protects biological women by being a "same-sex" facility because you are allowing both sexes in and calling everyone women, when they are not. Transgender women enjoy the privileges of being men as well as being women. So where does that leave women? It harms all biological women. And if you do not recognize this, you are not telling the truth.
It also harms the children whose puberty is stopped in its tracks with puberty blockers (a chemical form of castration) and chopping off body parts that are central to the one biological imperative we have: reproduction. This is not difficult to understand. It is a lie to say this ideology does not hurt anyone. That's like saying Zionist ethnosupremacist ideology is true and hurts no one. It is not true and it most certainly has harmed millions of people to date.. That is one ideology that really hurt the Democratic Party simply because it's been acting it out on real people whose real lives were snuffed out in the most outrageous manner on their watch and with their choosing to spend our money without a congressional declaration of war and even sometimes without congressional approval. That is the truth.
The truth is, "transgender" ideology is a pet project, a stepping stone to transhumanism through which the billionaire class are positioned to steal even more than they already have from the government's coffers. They fund the inculcating of youth in this ideology as well as funding the non-profits that support the ideology and the medical facilities which provide hormone replacement therapy and surgery and life-long services. All on the taxpayer's dime. This is taxation without representation. And it's mostly men who are benefiting from this. That is the truth. As though men are not privileged enough.
These men posing as women qualify for positions that are specifically for women, grants that are specifically for women, prizes and awards that are limited to "women". All these things exist because of the privilege that men are born to and live with their entire lives at the expense of women. And here they are stealing rights from women again.
Meanwhile women, many of whom were sexually molested as kids, who are stuck in prison are forced to put up with men who are pretending to be "women" (or their bizarre translation of women) in order to be housed with the very class of people they are in prison for predating upon. Pedophiles and rapists jump at the chance of being housed in a women's prison. Of course they do. And the women who are their prey have absolutely NO protection, even as they are imprisoned there, like dogs in a dog shelter. But dogs have their own cage, which female prisoners do not. They have to share quarters with male predators who still have the organ which they have used as a weapon which most often put them in the prison system to begin with.
Since when do "trans people" have the "right" to surgery when non-trans do not? You are lying that transgender people's "rights" aren't hurting other Americans. That is a lie which indicates you don't understand what has been happening in this country since 2013. I suggest you read some of Jennifer Bilek's blogs. There are very few truly trans people in this country. Let's tell the truth about that.
As for immigration, I don't give a flying fuck what the Dems or the Republicans believe on this issue. We need immigrants. That's the truth. If the billionaires want to use them against us, that's no reason to limit them coming into our country. The system does not provide sufficient lawyers or judges or material support to give them an honest chance to be given asylum. And until we stop engaging in activities (like gun running and drug using and hiring housekeepers and chicken pluckers for below-minimum wage payment) we have no right to refuse them the opportunity of migrating here. Not to mention the IMF's usurious loans and the billionaire class's predatory loans given to allow their home countries to make their interest payments, etc. In the near future those private investors are going to demand the right of ownership of their home countries' natural resources in lieu of payment for very high interest loans that should never have been made to begin with.
The Democratic as well as the Republican parties are horribly captured, both horrendously unrepresentative of anyone in this country. The truth is, we need a real revolution.
I don't really understand how Coates' fills the shoes you are trying on. The truth is both the Dems and the Republicans are wagged by the same tail. The Deep State doesn't care which party won. Neither did Netanyahu. And for very different reasons, neither did Putin.
FYI, "The Atlantic" has been captured by the Zionists for years now. It's not worth reading. It also panders to millenials who don't have much general knowledge or any historical understanding. Why is Coates publishing there?
As for immigrants, it isn't until the third generation in the US that they stop out-performing the native-born. Adapting to their new culture and becoming just like their native-born counterparts.